Eleanor was born last night (her due date) in the water birth tub at our local hospital. I have to say I am in love with that tub and it made labour so much easier. I was getting slammed with contractions with out enough break between them before. Once in the tub they were farther between, but still getting things done and I could breath through them more easily. Plus I was really feeling cold and a hot bath is just nice. We were in the hospital less than three hours and it took only four pushes before she was born. Midwife broke the bag after the first push (I may have sworn at her to do it). The cord was super short (I could not move her past my hip) so it needed to be cut right away and she was very deep gurgly so she spent some time in the warmer being suctioned before I got to put her to my chest. 8 lb even. My husband did his bit, including holding a cloth against my bottom to keep the hemorrhoids in when I pushed. It worked great and I am so very grateful to have the same bum today as yesterday since that was a real problem last time. The midwife on call was wonderful despite having just come from another birth. Her main evaluative technique was to ask if I had any questions and then just watch me labour to see where I was.

Eleanor latched on as soon as she had the chance and nursed literally for hours. Perfect little latch. Our pastor came in the morning for some baby snuggling and then brought us home less than 12 hours after she was born. Our family doctor was totally on board (he has a homebirth background) and all the nurses made sure everything got in done in time. Monkey was excited to see her and talked all about her, gave her his toys and was very excited to see her nurse on 'his' nanas. He was more excited later when he got his turn too. It turns out tandem nursing can be a pretty easy way to make everyone happy.

Of course I brought cloth to the hospital to try and it was so easy. I just had her in a fitted, Kissaluvs 0s at first, then Happy Heiny's Hemp Huggers for the first had a day since she was not making them wet really. I made liners from an old receiving blanket and when she had her tar poops, I could just switch one out and toss it after wiping her up. The nurses all thought they were really cute and it was nice to have something so soft against her skin. Far better then the Pampers stink coming from the package in the drawer.

Congratulations! I love her name! I'm amazed that you wrote out your birth story already. Zoe was born almost a week ago and this is as much as I've typed. I'll get around to the story and pics soon, I hope.

Congratulations! I love her name! I'm amazed that you wrote out your birth story already. Zoe was born almost a week ago and this is as much as I've typed. I'll get around to the story and pics soon, I hope.

My mum is here so adults still outnumber little ones, plus you had C-section so you have a harder job with everything.

I answered a work e-mail yesterday (I moderate a cloth diaper listserve) and got busted for having a new baby so I wrote most of this up for that.